The Ivory Tower Leans Left, but Why?

By

Naomi Schaefer Riley

Updated Feb. 29, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

That liberals dominate the faculties of American universities would seem to be a settled question. But anyone still harboring doubts can now look at faculty support for this year's presidential candidates. Barack Obama is the clear favorite. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, he had received, by the end of last year, almost a third of the funds donated by faculty and administrators nationwide. The Daily Princetonian, meanwhile, found that, as of last month, not a single Princeton employee had given money to a Republican. The faculties of Harvard, Stanford and Columbia were slightly more balanced, with more than 80% of donations at each institution going to Democrats.

In recent years a number of conservatives and a few honest liberals have tried to figure out why this political lopsidedness persists. A forthcoming volume on the subject from the American Enterprise Institute will contain a report from two scholars -- Matthew Woessner of Penn State, Harrisburg, and his wife, April Kelly-Woessner, of Elizabethtown College -- called "Left Pipeline: Why Conservatives Don't Get Doctorates."

Using data from UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, which surveys students at the beginning and end of their college careers, the couple (he a conservative, she a liberal) made some surprising discoveries. One might assume, for instance, that because conservatives on campus live in a culturally hostile environment, they might be less satisfied with their undergraduate experience and decide not to pursue a Ph.D. as a result. But in fact, the two scholars found that conservatives report a slightly higher rate of satisfaction with college than liberals do.

Liberals might then jump to the conclusion that conservatives don't go on with their education because -- insert George W. Bush crack here -- they're just not bright enough. In fact, however, self-described conservatives and liberals have about the same grade-point average. (The moderates score lowest on this academic scale.)

Conservatives might in turn suggest that the real key to determining who goes on to a doctorate is faculty mentorship. Professors encourage their closest students to pursue an academic career and write them strong recommendations for graduate school. Perhaps a liberal faculty member would be less likely to take a conservative under his wing. The study's authors found this point to have some validity, with conservatives less likely to meet with a professor outside of class and less likely to be involved in conducting research. But the differences are still rather small and not enough to "account for all of the observed difference in educational ambitions between liberals and conservatives."

Instead they hypothesized that the bulk of the ideological imbalance in academia is the result of differing personality traits. And so the scholars picked four traits -- the importance placed on raising a family, making money, contributing original work to a particular field and developing a meaningful philosophy of life -- and matched them up with students' political self-definitions. "Ideology," they wisely write, "represents far more than a collection of abstract political values." Liberalism, they found, "is more closely associated with a desire for excitement, an interest in creative outlets and an aversion to a structured work environment. Conservatives express far greater interest in financial success and stronger desires to raise families."

Each side of the political spectrum will find something smugly satisfying in the study's portrayal of the other. ("Aha! I knew Republicans cared only about the rich" or "Show me someone who doesn't like a 'structured work environment' and I'll show you someone on the unemployment line.") There may be a kernel of truth to such generalizations. What is less obvious is the claim, built into the statistical model itself, that someone who places more importance on raising a family would shy away from academia.

As Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University, wrote on The Volokh Conspiracy blog last week: "Relative to other professional jobs, academic careers are quite family friendly. Unlike most other professionals, professors have a high degree of control over their schedules [and] can do a higher proportion of their work at home." He also cites the "substantial tuition benefits" that many colleges offer, a particular bonus for conservatives with large families.

But to read the Chronicle of Higher Education -- which reflects the anxieties of its academic readership by featuring almost weekly articles on the burdens of the work-life balance -- you would never know about the upside of university life for families. Prof. Kelly-Woessner seems ignorant of it, too. She told me that there is a "great misconception in popular culture about what it is that academics do, that we teach a couple of days a week and have lots of free time." Not true, she explained. "Our average workweek is 60+ hours. And unlike a regular job, where you come home at 5, we're grading well into the evening."

Apparently there is also a misconception among academics that people in "regular jobs" -- not to mention the competitive professional jobs that academics might well aspire to if they did not choose to teach and write -- stop working at 5 p.m. There are plenty of professors who put in long hours, but the past few decades have only made things easier. Courseloads have lightened. Semesters have shortened. And all those little extras that benefit students -- sushi in the cafeteria, rock-climbing walls in the gym -- have benefited faculty members, too.

The paper's authors lament that professors must work very hard in their first few years on the job to secure tenure and that it may be difficult to find a job in a geographically desirable area. True enough, but these problems are also hardly peculiar to academia -- well, except for the tenure part. Most other jobs don't offer lifetime security.

All such complaints are, of course, symptoms of a certain kind of self-indulgence that comes from living in the ivory tower. It's the sort of attitude that stems from placing too much importance on "finding a meaningful philosophy of life." If you want to know why conservatives don't get doctorates, maybe it's because they just don't like hanging out with the people who do.

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